A wrestling card at the Middletown Sports Complex drew roughly 300 to 400 fans Friday night, filling seats on an ice rink that also serves as home base for the North American Hockey League’s New Jersey Titans. The event, called No Thanks Given, was put on by Fight Factory Wrestling and featured appearances from performers connected to Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA), Major League Wrestling and WWE’s past.
The card opened with an elimination eight-person tag team match, with Ben Bishop leading a team of Richard Holliday, Jack Vaughn and Madisyn Maxwell against a group called MADE. Kristin Blaze defeated Rachel Ley in a women’s singles match. WWE Hall of Famer Arn Anderson was in attendance to watch his sons compete against a team called Sent 2 Salute.
The main event was a no holds barred match for Steve Gibki’s openweight championship against TNA star KC Navarro. Gibki won after spearing Navarro through a table and locking in a finishing move known as the Hell Hammer.
The show came amid online debate over whether independent wrestling is in decline, after two other promotions, Produce Wrestling and Absolute Intense Wrestling, announced separate hiatuses heading into the end of the year. Produce Wrestling already has a show scheduled for Feb. 25.
Bishop, who made a surprise appearance at TNA’s Bound for Glory pay-per-view, pushed back on the idea that independent wrestling is fading when asked about it after the Middletown show.
“I mean, look at it, look at it here. In Middletown, New Jersey, on a Friday night, you could be doing anything,” Bishop said. “We’re close to (New York City). There’s a ton of things you can do. We got about 300, almost 400-plus here in Middletown, New Jersey, here at Fight Factory. You can thank me for the house. So yeah, this whole notion, indies are dead, all that stuff, it’s just words, it’s just noise. It comes up every few months. Everyone wants to pretend that they think that when they were wrestling on the indies, it was so much better. It is what it is. Things evolve, things change. I believe that indie wrestling is alive and well.”
Killer Kross, who wrestles for Major League Wrestling, a company with media rights deals and partnerships with CMLL and New Japan Pro-Wrestling, said he isn’t closely following the online debate but questioned its premise.
“No, that’s hilarious to me,” Kross said. “These are people who don’t attend indies that are saying that, and I don’t even think they’re saying it to be malicious. I think they’re just innocently saying it because you know, when you’re a young adult and you have a very busy life, if you’re not paying attention to something… then you innocently will think that it’s not important cause it doesn’t have your attention. But when you go to an independent show where there’s 2,000-3,000 people there, that kind of speaks for itself. I don’t get involved with neurotic conversations online.”
The crowd stayed through chilly conditions inside the rink to watch the full card, a turnout organizers and performers pointed to as evidence that independent wrestling still has an audience in the region.
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